We sit at his boardroom-style table positioned just behind a flame- red Formula 1 car emblazoned with the yellow prancing horse logo and polished within an inch of its life.

Though we could have spent a happy hour talking about his ­fabulous collection of historic motors including a Ferrari 250 GTO worth £30million, this is all about the early years of the Floyd.

The band have just released an astonishing seven-volume set of CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays gathering up demos, out-takes, live performances, BBC sessions, replica posters, ticket stubs, you name it . . . all from the years 1965 to 1972.

Now, via previously unreleased material, his involvement in the band is revealed in far greater detail

It comes in a big black box with a white stripe, a nice tribute to the one vehicle relevant to our chat . . . the Bedford.

There’s even a picture inside ­Volume One, which contains rough- and-ready Tea Set tracks, of Mason loading his drum kit into the back of the van on Cambridge’s aptly named Rock Road.

Through this mighty treasure trove, we trace the development of one of Britain’s most important bands, from psychedelic Syd Barrett- penned pop rock to ethereal experimental pieces . . . with everything pointing towards 1973’s momentous Dark Side.

After Syd left we could have just packed it in

Even casual students of rock ­history know the Pink Floyd story begins with Barrett’s rapid LSD- fuelled decline.

But it didn’t fully kick in until he’d written stellar singles Arnold Layne and See Emily Play for instance, and virtually all the tracks on 1967 debut album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn.

Now, via previously unreleased material, his involvement in the band is revealed in far greater detail.

The affable Mason remembers when Barrett, a childhood acquaintance of Roger Waters in Cambridge, joined The Tea Set.

“Syd was the most delightful man, absolutely charming,” he says. “He w

rote wonderful whimsical, pastoral, English music. It’s still not entirely clear what happened with him.

“There is this belief that maybe he just didn’t want to be a pop star. You have to know that in ’67, the rest of us DID want to be on Top of the Pops.

“Maybe Syd realised it wasn’t what he wanted but didn’t know how to get out of it.”

The irony is that Barrett was best equipped to write hit singles, even if Arnold Layne was about a pervert who liked to steal women’s underwear from washing lines and was banned from radio.

Maybe Syd realised it wasn’t what he wanted but didn’t know how to get out of it

Another potential single was his madcap Vegetable Man but its dark and disturbing undercurrents were probably behind the decision to scrap it.

A rare recording of that track and Scream Thy Last Scream, one of Mason’s few forays into lead vocals, are among the new box set’s most revealing items.

The drummer, who later added a primeval growl to One Of These Days from 1972’s Meddle, says with tongue firmly in cheek: “It’s distressing for me that my vocal career, which was looking so promising, was suddenly nipped in the bud by jealous band mates.

“Seriously, I didn’t really fancy myself as a singer. Even I thought this isn’t where I’m heading.”

Nick Mason says they took inspiration from groups like Genesis and Fleetwood Mac, who achieved success after splits

When troubled soul Barrett finally bowed out in early 1968, the rest of the band, including new recruit David Gilmour, regrouped and continued their quest for fame and fortune.

Mason says: “After Syd left, we were in that curious situation of the frontman leaving and we could have just packed it in.

“But what we did has worked really well for other people, Genesis and Fleetwood Mac, for example.

“You’ve got to have confidence and belief and somehow you get through it.

“When I look at old videos of David miming to Syd’s songs, where did we think we were going? But I remember that period as enormously cheerful because we were all on message and we were enjoying the whole thing.”

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However, post-Barrett singles such as Point Me At The Sky, by Waters and ­Gilmour, and It Would Be So Nice, by keyboard player Richard Wright, were slight ditties that flopped.

This is where Pink Floyd’s duality comes in. Through clubs like UFO in London, they were considered the “house band” of the burgeoning underground scene.

Through long improvised pieces such as Astronomy Domine and Interstellar Overdrive, they hinted at a successful future beyond the superficial singles market.

Second album, A Saucerful Of Secrets, retained one of Barrett’s best compositions, the woozy Jugband Blues, but it also marked Waters’s first great composition, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun.

The title track was a multilayered suite with haunting organ coda from Wright signalling bold new sonic horizons.

Because of these experimental leanings and lack of singles success, Floyd needed new audiences and they came from unlikely places.

Mason explains: “Rock and roll suddenly had an arm to it that was vaguely intellectual and we fitted into that niche.

“We survived partly by working abroad, particularly in France where they absolutely loved us, and thanks to the university circuit ­suddenly opening up.

“Bryan Morrison (who ran the band’s booking agency) originally sent us to do ballrooms and they hated us.”

Rock and roll suddenly had an arm to it that was vaguely intellectual and we fitted into that niche

One of Floyd’s early supporters was the late, great DJ John Peel, his endorsement appreciated by Mason to this day.

“Radio 1 had just kicked off and it was absolutely a singles world,” he says. “But there we were with our funny album tracks. John was the only place to get them played. Even pirate stations were singles-orientated.”

Now you can hear Peel introduce a session where he describes an early incarnation of Careful With That Axe Eugene as Murderotic Woman and A Saucerful Of Secrets as The Massed Gadgets Of Hercules.

Of Pink Floyd’s early work, Mason rates the first two albums highly as well as Meddle with its epic 23-minute Echoes

As we delve deeper into the period, memories come flooding back for Mason, like the time they played the Tulip Bulb Auction Hall in Spalding on the same bill as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton’s Cream. Rural Lincolnshire had never seen anything like it.

Mason says: “I remember a huge barn was full of soul boys because Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band were actually top of the bill. I’m surprised a fight didn’t break out.”

There’s the time they played The Feathers at Ealing and a ­disgruntled audience member threw a coin at Waters.

“It hit Roger quite hard but his reaction was to stay on stage and look for the coin.”
(Hard to imagine but he probably needed the money back then!)

But he describes some of their recordings (Ummagumma) as ‘part of the learning curve’

A bit later on, the BBC invited Floyd to play during live coverage of the Apollo 11 moon landing in July 1969.

A recording of their instrumental piece Moonhead is included in the Early Years box.

While it may have been “one small step for man,” it has proved one giant black hole in Mason’s memory.

“I know we were in the studio but I have no f***ing recollection of it all,” he cries.
Of Pink Floyd’s early work, Mason rates the first two albums highly as well as Meddle with its epic 23-minute Echoes.
But he describes the half studio/half live Ummagumma as “part of the learning curve” and Atom Heart Mother, the band’s first No1 album, as a “bit of a cul-de-sac.”

I know we were in the studio but I have no f***ing recollection of it all

Also explored in the new box are the band’s film soundtracks for More, Zabriskie Point and French film La Vallee (Obscured By Clouds), which Mason remembers “knocking off very quickly.”

Before we go our separate ways, I have to ask Mason the obligatory “will Pink Floyd ever perform together again?” question.

The keeper of the Floyd flame would jump behind his drum kit tomorrow but getting hugely ­successful solo artists Roger Waters and David Gilmour to agree is another matter.

“I think it’s very hard to see it happening,” admits Mason. “I think Roger’s happy working on his own and David’s the same.

“I still believe the only real possibility would be the equivalent of Live Aid. In the modern world, we’re really short of strong enough characters to bring that together . . . you need a Nelson Mandela.”

The last time Floyd played was at Bob Geldof’s Live8 in 2005 with songs Breathe, Money, Wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb ringing out across London’s Hyde Park and reaching a mass worldwide TV audience.